Happy St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is a special day for my husband and me, we met on this day, a long, long time ago when I was 16 and he was 17.  So we always get each other little gifts to mark the occasion.  I got him a St. Patrick's Day tee shirt and a Bill Bryson book.
He antiqued a little wooden tray and got a minature tea set for me.
 But so you won't think I'm too "girly" he also made me a trebuchet that actually fires.  It is beyond cool.  Once I get my black powder for the cannon he gave me for Christmas I'll be armed and seriously dangerous.

Happy 3.14159265 Day

Numbers fascinate me, always have.  I count everything, as a child how many steps to school, how many bites to finish my dinner.  When I "met" Pi (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, I spent hours seeing how far out I could take its decimal. Someone took it out 63,000 places, I think I managed somewhere around 24 places.
 Loved the idea that it was an irrational number, something I could definitely identify with and that it couldn't be expressed as a fraction, just a decimal.  I love turning  decimals into fractions and then  fractions into decimals, I know, I know, I was a weird kid.
Anyway Happy Pi Day------that's ∏ to you.

Phoenix Ware

Whenever we travel to England I always pick up the odd piece of porcelain, usually plates.  A few years ago I bought this art deco plate made by Thomas Forester & Sons in what I call a poppy pattern, just love the colors and the deco shape.   Forester & Sons have been making porcelain since the 1870's and their Phoenix Ware, which this is, generally dates from the 1930's.  Anyway I fell in love with this piece, but have been unable to find any more of it.


Then at Christmas Mac tracked down this little

creamer (it's from Australia) and gave it to me as a present.
Last month I found this sweet little dessert trio while shopping online, it's from England and it finally got here earlier this week.

 Now I need to find a sugar bowl and a teapot, maybe while we're in England this summer I'll find them.

Is This Really Good For My Brain?

I about drove myself crazy with this puzzle.  It was a gift from Mac at Christmas and it turned out to be gorgeous, but oh my was it hard.  Going to do a bit simpler one next.

The First Gator of Spring

He is much bigger than last year, in fact we think he may be a new alligator.  Looking at his "rotundness"  I don't think we'll ask about the first robins of spring.
He's been cruising up and down the lagoon the last few days, don't know what he's looking for.  You know what alligators eat don't you, Anything They Want.

Mixed Emotions

For as long as I can remember, at least 10 years, our daughter has wanted to move to Japan.  She goes there 3 or 4 times a year and has been actively looking for a job there for quite awhile.  At Christmas she let us know that it looked like she had finally found something and  at the end of January the formal offer was made and she accepted.
Today she gave official notice to her current employer and April 1 will be her last day of work.  She'll be coming down here for about a week and then she flies off to Japan to the city of Fukuoka.   Fukuoa  is located on the southern island of Kyushu, is Japan's 6th largest city  and is approximately 7,543 miles from here and 13 hours ahead of us.  Strangely enough Atlanta is one of Fukuoka's sister cities.
She is so thrilled that she's walking on air.  After the first shock and sadness we have come to terms with this and we're happy for her. We know that where she's been and the job she's had has been very stressful and have brought her no joy.  And we're firm believers in the idea that everyone needs some joy in their life, so we're hopeful that Japan will be everything she has ever wanted it to be.  It sounds like she has an interesting job, she has friends already living there and best of all her commute won't be in  a car or on roads with crazy drivers.
Don't know if we can deal with a long flight to Japan, will have to find some where to stop off and break up the trip, but I'm sure we'll end up over there at some point.  Of course she'll have to come home for Christmas, that's not negotiable.

Saturday's Child

                                        Monday's child is fair of face

                                        Tuesday's child is full of grace

                                        Wednesday's child is full of woe

                                        Thursday's child has far to go

                                        Friday's child is loving and giving

                                        Saturday's child works hard for a living

                                        But the child born on the Sabbath Day
                                        is bonny and blithe and good and gay

Don't ask why this little ditty got stuck in my head today I have no idea, but stuck is was.  It got me to wondering what day of the week I had been born on, so I typed in the first line, that took me to wikipedia which gave me the whole poem.  Next I googled "what day of the week was" and that led me to Days of the Week.  Turns out I was born on a Saturday, but to be honest I don't think I ever worked very hard for my living, though at times any work was too hard.

What day of the week were you born on?

Random Bits on Wednesday

My poor daughter is still waiting for the repairman to show up and fix her heater, can we all say BRRRRRR!

I made Guinness bread today, my daughter had given me the mix for Christmas because she knows I love Guinness; though I don't drink it much because every time I do it rains, particularly in England.
Anyway, the mix called for treacle or molasses, neither of which I had so I improvised, I used honey and brown sugar.  The bread is done and it is DELICIOUS!

So I've got Irish bread (that is where Guinness is from) so what am I making to go with it, a Cuban dish, black beans and rice with linguica, a Portuguese sausage.  Nice international meal.

It's raining, again, the fireplace is lit and it's sort of warm in here, if you don't sit still too long so I had better get moving.

My Poor Baby

Our daughter lives in Maryland, usually a fairly temperature area, but not this year.  They have been hit with one winter storm after another and to top things off the heater in her townhouse went out yesterday.  She's waiting to hear when someone can come out and look at it.  In the mean time it was around 42º in the townhouse when she woke up this morning,  11º outside. Last night she used a space heater and a heating pad to get through the night.
 She had to go to work  today having been off yesterday because of the latest storm, so she dug her car out yesterday afternoon so it'd be ready this morning.  It was, but the trunk wasn't, the lock was frozen and it only opened enough for the trunk light to come on and she couldn't deal with that  until she got to work.  And of course her commute was from hell with 2 cars attempting to occupy the space she was already in.
She's at work now where at least it's warm and her cat is at home in a "nest" she fixed for him.  I told her that if she couldn't get the heat fixed she ought to go to a hotel for a while.  Her high today will be 31º and tonight it'll be 13º, I worry about her.

Vanquished Once Again

Yes, once more the silver threads among the gold have been vanquished!  I may be wrinkled and I may sag, but I refuse to have grey/white/silver hair.  So with my Clairol in hand I returned my hair to its ashy blonde.  Is that my real color you ask--inquiring minds want to know---?  And well you may ask, my own Father asked me that one time.  No, it's not quite my own color, I was a cross between mousy brown and ashy blonde.
For a few years I dyed my hair black and that was interesting, but it wasn't me.  Since my early 20's I've been some sort of blonde and that's what I'll stay.  I can just see me in my walker, struggling over to the sink,  Clairol bottle in hand, dying my few remaining strands of hair, when I'm 96.

Starting to Look Springlike

The window in my laundry room, almost looks like spring.  Doesn't make laundry any more fun to do though.  But it's nice to be able to hang the clothes outside.
Our poor daughter is getting all kinds of snow this week, she's really fed up with it, we'll get cooler weather and rain, not too bad.
Mac is bar-b-queing ribs today so I thought I contribute potato salad in honor of the sunny day.